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9 Bold Predictions for the 2015 NBA Season

[Editor’s
Note: Daniel Fotinich is a regular reader, and a good friend, who wanted to
throw his hat in the ring with some bold predictions prior to the commencement
of this highly anticipated NBA season. I won’t give anything about his work
away here…just give it a read!–
Elijah Abramson]

One of my favorite things about the NBA is
debating outrageous claims made by others. It seems that almost every year, a
few things that basically nobody predicts happen (and the few that predicted
them have an ego that skyrockets). Many people have different definitions of a
“bold prediction”, but I will use this one: A bold prediction is one that is
significantly different than what the general consensus is among NBA fans and
writers. So, even though plenty of Golden State fans might think that “Stephen Curry
averaging 30ppg this year” is actually highly likely, the average impartial fan
or writer would think the chance of that is very slim. Keep in mind that this
is also a matter of degree; most people around the NBA believe that the Heat
will decline, but saying that they will miss the playoffs with both Wade and
Bosh would qualify as a bold prediction.

Without further ado, here are 9 bold predictions
for the 2014-2015 NBA season:

The Indiana Pacers will miss the playoffs.

In fact, I don’t even think it will be close.
The only teams in the East that I am confident will be worse than Indiana are
Philadelphia and Orlando. I’ve always liked Indiana and their hard-nosed
defense—I picked them to make the NBA finals last year over Miami. However,
their well-publicized decline in the second half of last season was extremely
concerning. Zach Lowe noted that over the last 30 or so games that Indiana had
the worst offense of any team in the league besides Philadelphia. Now, that
already-putrid offense loses the only two guys who can actually create their
own shots. Lance Stephenson is now in Charlotte (more on that later), while
Paul George fractured his tibia and fibia and is unlikely to play this season.
They replaced those two with… Rodney Stuckey and CJ Miles? David West has had a
great run in Indiana, but he’s already 34 and will have much less space to
shoot his patented 18-footers. Hibbert has almost no offense to speak of, and
the rest of the team is full of complimentary offensive players. A team with a
bottom-five offense and a middle-of-the-road defense (Stuckey and Miles are
obvious defensive downgrades from Stephenson and George) isn’t a playoff team.
I think the Pacers will be lucky to win 30 games even if George makes a
miraculous return. So who will take their place? Well…

The New York Knicks will
make the playoffs.

In fact, I have them as the sixth seed and
possibly winning a playoff series. Carmelo Anthony just signed for five years,
and now that he can finally afford to feed his family, he should be solely
focused on winning a championship in New York City. Jose Calderon isn’t a great
defender, but he is a significant upgrade over Ray “Cheeseburger” Felton, and
his pass-first style will help create better shots for Carmelo, Shumpert, and
others. Although both Carmelo and new GM Phil Jackson have talked about this
being a transition year, I don’t see either of them being satisfied with
missing the playoffs. Additionally, I wouldn’t rule out a mid-season trade that
would help them this year and in the future. Of course, the Knicks are banking
on next summer when Amare Stoudemire’s atrocious contact expires, but I think
they’ll be better this year than people think.

Lance Stephenson
will average 20+ppg and 5+apg and clearly make the all-star team.

Instead of
signing a five-year deal with somebody else, Lance chose to bet on himself this
offseason and signed a three-year deal which will make him a free agent again
when he turns 26. Lance has had obvious maturity issues, but these mask the
fact that he just turned 24 and has made significant improvements in his game
every single year. Going from Indiana to Charlotte will help his stats, of
course, but I think that in the long-run, Lance deserves to be paid
significantly more than he does today. As long as he doesn’t blow in Michael
Jordan’s ear, he’s making the All-Star team this season.

Ricky Rubio will
learn how to shoot and earn a long-term contract starting at ~$10m/year.

This is a
complete shot in the dark, and Rubio could easily shoot 36% this season and
struggle to sign for the mid-level exception in the offseason. However, it just
doesn’t make sense to me how a guy as talented as Rubio cannot shoot more than
38% in a season. The best example of a guy who figured it out is Jason Kidd -
in his first three seasons, Kidd shot 38.5%, 38.1%, and 36.9% from the field.
In his fourth season, he picked it up to 42.3%, and the rest is history; he
finished his career 3rd on the list of the most 3-pointers made. Of course,
Rubio is already an excellent passer, and if he can shoot over, say, 42% in a
season, he will earn himself a long-term contract. I have no idea how good
Minnesota will be this season with Wiggins/Bennett instead of Love, but I
believe that Rubio will get his shooting percentages up into the low-40s.

Kevin Love will
average under 20 pgg.

The return of
King James and the trade for Kevin Love has made Cleveland a clear favorite to
the win the Eastern Conference, and possibly, the NBA title. However,
sacrifices must be made. Most people believe that Love will sacrifice some
numbers playing with James, but I think that it will occur on a much larger
scale. Last season, he averaged 26.5ppg, but this was with a very high usage
rate, playing on a horrible Minnesota team. With James and Irving around, Love
should be third in the pecking order, and it’s not as if Dion Waiters and
Tristian Thompson won’t get some shots. No way does Love score remotely close
to how much he did in Minnesota. I’m of the mindset that this season will
reveal Love to be a far worse player than everybody thinks, even though
Cleveland’s offense should be among the best in the league.

The Golden State
Warriors will have the best defense in the league.

Surprisingly, a
team starting Stephen Curry and David Lee actually had the third best defense
last year, after Indiana and Chicago. Chicago should be a very good team, but I
think that Golden State has more room for improvement this season. While the
loss of coach Mark Jackson is disappointing, Klay Thompson should continue to
improve as a defender, and David Lee’s inevitable decline (he is on the wrong
side of 30, after all) should open up more minutes for Draymond Green, who is a
significantly better defender. The Dubs’ offense was disappointing under
Jackson, so if Steve Kerr is able to bring in new and more creative offensive
sets, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them in the top-10 on offense. These two
should combine for a top-four seed in the West.

The Houston
Rockets will be a 7th seed or worse.

For the first
time in the Daryl Morey era, the Rockets had what seems to be a pretty horrible
off-season. They started by declining Parson’s 5th year option (which would
have paid him $960k) and made him a restricted free agent, only to watch the
Mavs swoop in and offer him a contract starting at $15m/year. Next, they traded
Jeremy Lin, another solid starter, to the Lakers for chump change. Then, they
were spurned by both Chris Bosh and Carmelo Anthony. Not to be outdone, James
Harden won the award for “misguided comment of the year” by referring to all of
his teammates besides Dwight Howard as “role players” (even if it’s true, you
don’t say that about your teammates), and then made several comments about
finally starting to play defense (really…?). Parsons and Lin are both solid
starters, and even though the Rockets are clearly desperate for their 3rd star,
losing those two will hurt them this season. Going forward, I just don’t see
which star player will fit in well with Howard and Harden, and they definitely
aren’t going to find one this season. I wouldn’t be shocked if they miss the
playoffs in the ultra-competitive West, but I’ll predict that they just sneak
in as a 7 or 8 seed.

The Dallas
Mavericks will win the battle of Texas.

I won’t go as far
as to pick them to have a better overall record than the Spurs (I learned that
the hard way last year when I predicted the Spurs would barely make the
playoffs), but I think they will have the best record in their games against
other Texas teams (Houston, San Antonio). I already discussed that I think
Houston will be a worse team this year, but I think Dallas will be better than
expected. Their offense last year was the best in the league after the all-star
break, and after adding Tyson Chandler to shore up the middle, Dallas will
match up extremely well against San Antonio. Additionally, they took the Spurs
to 7 games in the first round last year.

The Los Angeles Lakers will make the playoffs.

And Kobe Bryant will average 25+ppg. No
explanation for this one, I’m just a Lakers fan. :)

This column is the original work of Daniel Fotinich. Follow him on
Twitter here:

4 comments:

Alright man let me start off with saying that I really enjoyed reading this! Enjoyed the humor you injected at points, especially in that Knicks section. Now as for the content and my opinion on your predictions: I have three feelings about each of your predictions - 1) reasonable but bold, 2) no way, 3) not really a bold prediction.

The Pacers not making the playoffs is tough. I realize no PG and Lance means they will struggle but 8 teams better than them in the East? It's bold. Cleveland, Washington, Toronto, Charlotte, Atlanta, New York, Miami, and Brooklyn, for example? I can buy it. I'll come back to this but Zach Lowe talked with Frank Vogel on his podcast last week and said CJ Miles and Stuckey are underrated. Probably a coach who's happy he got a new deal talking up his guys but those guys could contribute at some level.

New York Knicks making the playoffs has to be the favored option at this point. I put -100 odds that they make the playoffs. With Melo's new contract, Calderon on board, and Phil Jackson pulling the strings, I don't see them missing the playoffs in the East.

I knew the Lance one was coming. Like the Knicks, I'm not sure how bold it is in light of that. He also dished 5 assists per game last season (rounded up from 4.6). A jump of 13 to 20 PPG is big but considering the circumstances, not outlandish. The NBA had 19 20ppg scorers last year including Rudy Gay, Goran Dragic, and Isaiah Thomas. I don't think it's a hallowed number as much as it used to be.

You probably haven't heard but ESPN's Amin Elhassan is a believer in Rubio and his unique skillset. Spent a good amount of time saying how valuable he is...and believe it or not was on the 10/2 Lowe Post podcast and said Rubio is worth $10 mil a year easily.

I can buy Love under 20 a game and the Rockets falling in the standings. I do not like the Rockets, but that shouldn't come as a surprise considering I'm a Dubs fan. Speaking of which, I was pleasantly surprised to see your Dubs pick. Best D in the league? With Kerr, who knows...

I do have two qualms about the Dubs spiel though. 1) Age among bigs is not that important. Sure DLee is 31 - which isn't that old anyway... - but look at the Duncans of the world. Late 30s for bigs isn't unreasonable. In fact, I fully expect DLee to have a BETTER year this year than last year. Second, loss of MJax is disappointing??? Nah. Dude had no offensive scheme, played favorites, and wasn't more than a rah-rah guy. I don't want to belittle his success but my point is that this roster has untapped potential. Kerr will help tap into what MJax didn't. The Dubs new Triangle-esque offense will help get shooters more OPEN shots. Curry can hit em in Kobe's face, but a wide-open 3 is still a more preferable option. As Iguodala said today, he'd pass up a clear-path dunk for a lay-up for Klay who's camped beyond the arc.

I'm not a believer in the Mavs but Dirk is another example of a guy who is not athletic and, as a result, aged well.

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"Oh, and the Warriors currently have the best defense in the NBA -- allowing just 87.5 points per 100 possessions -- and are outscoring their opponents 15.5 points per 100 possessions overall, per NBA.com."

per http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2014/11/3/7146407/nba-power-rankings-2014-spurs-warriors-rockets-mavericks

Not surprised. They got THREE consecutive stops at the end of the Blazers game to get the win. That was one of the most impressive defensive stands I've ever seen. Improbable mixed with a hair of luck. Plus the game-winner from Klay? Crazy.